1408

David Appleby/Dimension Films

Review in a Hurry:  A cynical travel writer (John Cusack) who reviews haunted houses may have found the real thing in a New York hotel room that's in the running for Unhappiest Place on Earth. Thick with tension and cannily manipulative, it's the scariest adaptation of a Stephen King story in...well, maybe ever.

The Bigger Picture:  You can check out 1408 any time you like. Just know that it's so intense, it might not ever leave you. This may not look like much on paper—King's horror stories often don't play well on the big screen, and it'd be easy to assume early on that you've signed up for a lot of John Cusack talking to himself in a hotel room. (Samuel L. Jackson shares top billing, but his role—as a hotel manager who tries to talk Cusack out of entering the room, warning him that no one has ever lasted more than an hour inside—is little more than a cameo.)

Fortunately, Cusack talks to himself better than anyone else in the business.

1408 is that novelty, a comfortably adult horror film. While it springs from a fairly pat premise (Cusack's character comes equipped with the requisite tragic past, and the hotel room might as well be a miniature version of the Overlook Hotel from The Shining), the execution is superb, eschewing cheap scares for throbbing, intense shocks. Cusack is in top form, likable but bitter, grounding his haggard, weary character early on in a way that gives him someplace to go when the going gets weird.

And the room turns out to be a very weird place to go—so much so that the PG-13 rating on 1408 is perhaps a tad generous. While there's not much in the way of gore (or, heaven forbid, harsh language), the film's steadily mounting sensory assault induces the kind of looking-over-your-shoulder paranoia that's the mark of true suspense.

Over the course of an hour in the room, which wisely plays out in more-or-less real time, it's easy to see how one might go mad; some of the film's more terrifying moments come from seeing the clock and realizing how little time has passed, and how much more is left to happen. That's how scary 1408 is: You might be afraid (in a very good way, mind you) that it won't ever end.

The 180—a Second Opinion:  Look, if you don't on some level enjoy being scared, this is not the movie for you. And if Cusack's dry, off-the-cuff mannerisms wear on you, then 1408 is scary for entirely different reasons.